Georgia GOP Chair Invents New Argument Against Marriage Equality

Oh boy, we have a new argument against same-sex marriage. It was invented by Sue Everhart, the chairwoman of the Georgia Republican Party, and it goes something like this: “ZOMG! If we allow gay people to get married, people will pretend to be gay and get married so they can get the benefits!”

“Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this, but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married,” Everhart said. “If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”

Everhart said while she respects all people, if same sex marriage is legalized across the country, there will be fraud.

“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” Everhart said. “Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”

Um. Yeah. If a straight person wanted to do that, why wouldn’t they just do it with someone of the opposite sex? That same type of “fraud” is just as likely in straight marriages, isn’t it? But she wouldn’t use that as a reason not to allow straight people to get married.

Meet the new argument — just as stupid and irrational as the old arguments.

As I recall, there was a movie out a couple of years ago with exactly that theme. Hopefully someone will jump in and identify it for me.

matty1

Civil marriage should be a way of telling the government “I want this person to have the legal prerogatives of marriage in relation to me”. No more, no less – it is not the business of the state to peer into peoples private motives and decide on questions like true love or sexual compatibility.

tynk

If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.

Oh honey… I have some things I could teach you that you would never forget!

Trebuchet

Aaand….fiftthdentist got it for me while I was typing!

doublereed

It wouldn’t be just as likely with straight marriages, because she’s assuming that men and women can’t be friends without a sexual relationship. At least I think that’s what she’s getting at.

But really I think this is just projection. She wants to marry her best friend even though she’s “straight as an arrow.”

tbp1

Honestly I’ve always thought a large part of the reason my mother married her second husband was health insurance. She had “pre-existing conditions” galore and was essentially unemployable and uninsurable. Maybe not the most admirable thing she ever did, but she was pretty desperate. In a country with rational health care and a decent safety net maybe things would have been different (it did not end well).

scienceavenger

“Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this, but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married,” Everhart said. “If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”

It kills me how fast these right-wingers turn to sounding like granola munching treehuggers the minute they think similar arguments will help them. I thought humans were above nature and all godly and shit. Since RWers like analogies to rape so much, here’s one for ya: Rape is natural, the norm in some species. If it weren’t natural, women would be strong enough to fight men off.

lldayo

I didn’t know marriage occurred in nature…

embertine

I’m pretty sure the GF and I have the equipment to have a sexual relationship. Do you think I need to send Madam Chairman some diagrams?

http://thebronzeblog.wordpress.com/ Bronze Dog

I think this was an episode of Drawn Together. The web cartoon pig sham-married the swordsman to get his medical insurance to treat his computer virus. At the end of the episode, the conservative Disney princess finally decided there wasn’t anything wrong with gay marriage and that there wouldn’t be apocalyptic consequences to legalizing it. Immediately after she finished, the neighborhood was invaded by nazis riding dinosaurs and pteranodons.

whheydt

It would appear that she is unaware of sham marriages for immigration purposes.

Dunc

“If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”

They do. You just have a depressingly limited conception of sex.

http://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/User:Modusoperandi Modusoperandi

Yes, there are sham marriages for insurance, but soon there’ll be sham gay marriages for insurance too. That’s twice as many! Thanks a lot, liberals!

http://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/User:Modusoperandi Modusoperandi

Dunc“They do. You just have a depressingly limited conception of sex.”

She does it the way her mother, and her mother, and her mother before her did it; laying on her back, quietly, in the dark. Sometimes she gets naughty and thinks about making a casserole for dinner the next day.

RickR

Holy crap. This really is the stupidest anti-marriage equality argument ever. And in the cesspool of stupidity that is the anti-equality movement, that’s saying something.

“If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”

*headdesk*

http://composer99.blogspot.ca composer99

Everhart claims:

Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this, but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married,” Everhart said. “If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship

Given that “what’s moral”, in the context of civil law, and “what’s natural” (which I will here define as “found in the natural world, excluding human social constructs because arbitrariness”) aren’t very related, I believe the correct response is: why should we care what’s “natural” or not in this case?

regexp

Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan.

Did we all miss the fact that she was dissing government workers again?

Memo to Ms Everhart: government benefits aren’t that great. Its the second reason why I would never work for State or Federal government. The first reason? the pay sucks.

that would be like, in the civil rights era, a white person putting on blackface to go eat in a whites only establishment

Taz

Does Mr. Furley know about this?

http://aceofsevens.wordpress.com Ace of Sevens

It’s simple Ed. You cannot be forced to testify against your spouse. Members of organized crime can get married to avoid be compelled to testify. Since most major figures are men, sham marraiges are a limited problem now, but legally SSM and they’ll all pair off with whoever they work most closely with.

howdini

“just as stupid and irrational as the old arguments”

l think this particular argument is just as irrational, but quite a bit more stupid.

lofgren

I prefer the old version of this argument, where Future Al Capone pretends to be gay married to his future gang so that they can’t testify against him.

fastlane

I wouldn’t say she’s going to get in trouble, but there will be lots of pointing and laughing.

cjcolucci

Wasn’t this how Boston Legal ended, with very straight Alan Shore (James Spader) marrying super-straight Denny Crain (William Shatner), who was suffering from incipient Alzheimer’s (or, as he prefrerredto put it, “mad cow disease”) so someone Crain trusted would be able to make decisions for him when he lost his marbles?

vmanis1

Three’s Company

Since two people of the same sex don’t have `the equipment’, what does she think same sex couples do in bed? On second thought…

frog

Many years ago, when she was in her early 90s, my grandmother and I were watching something on TV and she turned to me and said, “How does a man have sex with another man?” I think she honestly didn’t know, and was so mystified and curious that she didn’t realize she was asking this question of her grandchild.

I was only in my early 20s, and this was not a topic I wanted to tackle, so I said, “I don’t know, Grandma.”

So it is possible for an intelligent person to grow to adulthood and not understand these concepts, if they have never been discussed with them. Grandma was about as liberal as it was possible for a Catholic born at the end of the 18th century on a farm in the ass-end of Ireland to be (which is actually pretty liberal). She understood what gay people were; she just had never thought about the mechanics of it.

After she asked this question and I gave that answer, I saw her look all thoughtful, then give a little startle, and then nod. So I guess she figured it out once she thought about it.

Sue Everhart, being a complete dumbass in many ways, never stood a chance.

mobius

Gee, when I was in the Air Force (30-some years ago) I knew a few different-sex couples that got married strictly for the benefits. The regulations for married and unmarried people were decidedly different with the married couples having certain benefits, such as not being forced to live in barracks.

So I guess that by Ms. Everhart’s logic, heterosexual marriage is an evil thing and should be abolished.

Crip Dyke, MQ, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden

Perhaps she thinks that “the equipment” for a sexual relationship runs into the 10s of thousands of dollars, and queers just don’t have the money for good leather restraints and the like?

I, personally, have been able to get by with an investment of mere hundreds of dollars.

marcus

cjcolucci @ 26 Yes, this was one of my favorite episodes. The twist was that the gay rights activists sued to prevent the nuptials because, IIRC, that they had worked too hard for marriage equality to have the rights “misused” by two old(er) straight white guys. Hilarious.

Crip Dyke @30 Yeah she would be really pissed off if she found out I got all that stuff w/ black market food stamps.

jws1

Maybe she’s also unaware that there is such a thing as a straight couple that does not have a “sexual relationship.”

Loqi

Slippery slope arguments based on the plots of Adam Sandler movies are generally sound. For example, if we allow hockey players to play golf, what’s stopping them from punching Bob Barker?